Slain wife made accusations, threats in letters to Robert Blake

New York Daily News

Published Thursday, May 10, 2001

LOS ANGELES -- Slain grifter Bonny Bakley accused actor Robert Blake of cheating on her, threatened there would be no sex after they were married and feared that she was being set up, according to letters obtained by the New York Daily News.

And after a lifetime of preying on men, Bakley smelled a rat when Blake allegedly told her he knew someone who wanted to buy their baby daughter for $100,000.

''I knew it was you trying to get rid of me thinking that would be cheaper than paying child support in the long run,'' Bakley wrote.

She was killed Friday after she and the ''Baretta'' star dined at a favorite restaurant near his Los Angeles home. The actor told cops she had feared a stalker and that he brought a gun along to protect her. He said he left it on a chair in the restaurant and she was killed as she sat in his car while he returned to the restaurant to retrieve it.

Blake, 67, agreed in November to marry Bakley after DNA tests confirmed that he was the father of her daughter Rose, now 11 months old.

''He genuinely loved this little girl,'' a police source said. ''In talking to him, I got the feeling it rejuvenated him and gave him a new lease on life.''

But the undated letters, which Bakley wrote to Blake while they were negotiating a bizarre prenuptial agreement, gave no hint that the actor was ever in love with the dowdy 44-year-old grifter.

''I think he only married her because he was an old-fashioned guy who wanted to do things right,'' the police source said.

In the series of often angry letters, Bakley accused Blake of having an affair with a woman in New York while she was giving birth to their daughter and said she told him the child's father was Christian Brando to get back at him.

Bakley also misspelled a common anti-Semitic slur as she railed against Blake's lawyers while complying with his demand that she put in writing her promise to give up her scamming ways -- with one condition.

''Unless of course Robert Blake intends to be unfaithful in this lifetime,'' she added. ''Then who knows what I might be capable of.''

At another point, she warned him, ''Oh, and no sex after we were married, that's another thing.''

But in other letters, she played on Blake's sympathy, confiding at one point that she -- like the actor -- had been abused as a child. She said her con games against unsuspecting men grew out of her rotten childhood.

''I think psychologically it helps me get even with mankind,'' she wrote. ''My father tried to get fresh with me when I was 7.''

In another letter, she went from victim to vixen and apparently felt comfortable enough with Blake to refer to him with another common ethnic slur -- this one for Italians. Blake's real name is Michael Gubitosi.

''I realize the only thing I'm getting out of this deal is a nasty old (slur),'' she wrote. ''But that's all I wanted. So like you tell me, relax.''

Bakley, who was supposed to be living in Arkansas as part of her probation on a federal fraud conviction, also asked Blake to keep her travels back and forth to California a secret ''so they don't throw me back in jail.''

But in a letter believed to have been written in Arkansas in September, she sensed she would be in danger if she returned to California.

''I'm almost afraid to move out,'' she wrote. ''Perhaps someone will set me up or something.''

Blake and Rose were staying with his daughter Delinah, from a previous marriage, at Delinah's house in the Hidden Hills section of Los Angeles Tuesday and could not be reached for comment.

His lawyer, Harland Braun, and the private investigator Blake hired have suggested that Bakley was killed by one of many men she bilked during her 20-year criminal career.

Bakley's letters surfaced as detectives were looking at a claim by Blake's private eye that a mysterious stranger had been spotted near the actor's home.

Meanwhile, British tabloids reported that detectives were preparing to grill Brando -- a convicted killer and son of actor Marlon Brando -- about her death.

Bakley married Blake four months ago and was living in a bungalow behind his house with their daughter. Documents obtained by The News suggested she was still running scams to bilk men out of cash by sending them nude photos and begging for money for supposed car repairs.

Detectives said they don't consider Blake a murder suspect. But Bakley's relatives, some of whom arrived in Los Angeles Tuesday to arrange her funeral, said Blake repeatedly threatened his wife.

''He is a suspect in my eyes, in my family's eyes,'' said Bakley's half-brother, Peter Carlyon of Bartlett, Tenn.

X X X

Excerpts from letters written by Bonny Bakley to Robert Blake from the early fall 1999 to the signing of a prenuptial agreement in October 2000:

Undated

You wanted something in writing. Here it is. I Bonny Lee Bakley, aka Lee Bonny Bakley, promise to never do any of those things the (apparent slur referring to Jewish lawyers used by Blake) told Michael Gubitosi, aka Robert Blake, I intended to do. Unless of course, he, Michael Gubitosi, aka Robert Blake, intends to be unfaithful in this lifetime. Then who knows what I might be capable of.

-- Bonny Lee Bakley

-- Lee Bonny Bakley

x x x

Undated

''I agree on my own free will to stay out of the State of California for the next four months so that my daughter will have an opportunity to get to know her father.''

(NOTE: There is no indication she followed through on this promise.)

x x x

Undated letter shortly after the birth of their daughter

''You talked to the Enquirer letting them write that story to try to embarrass me, my friends and family.

''Oh yeah, the $100,000 offer for the baby, telling me someone you know wanted to buy her. I knew it was you just trying to get rid of me thinking that would be cheaper than paying child support in the long run. All of this is enough to make any sane person temporarily insane.

''Anyway, if there is anyway at all possible to get past all this I still want to be with you forever, with no lies or cheating, of course. If you really don't want this on us, then let me know.

-- Lee Bonny

Undated letter explaining why she's hesitant to give up bilking men

''the mail order might be difficult to give up completely. I think psychologically it helps me get even with mankind. My father tried to get fresh with me when I was seven, while my mother was in the hospital having Joey (her brother). He died before I could grow up and kill him.